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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27600350">little by little</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/pseuds/kinoface'>kinoface</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arashi (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Anxiety, Closeted Character, Complicated Relationships, Fade to Black, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:54:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,963</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27600350</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/pseuds/kinoface</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino's deepest anxieties rarely respond to logic. (Shadows in Slow Motion verse.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Matsumoto Jun/Ninomiya Kazunari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>little by little</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389364">Shadows in Slow Motion</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/pseuds/kinoface">kinoface</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was written shortly after Nino got married and was kinda-sorta inspired by the gross rumors that immediately began flying around, but I decided not to post it then because I didn't want it to come off as commentary on the marriage itself, the announcement, etc. Let it be known, for the record, that I am 100% happy for and supportive of Nino and whomever he wants to spend his time with, and I firmly believe that whatever he chooses to share with us, and however he chooses to share it, is entirely his business. 💛</p><p>Not beta-read, but thank you to phrenk and cupcake4mafia for looking at this back then and sharing their thoughts and also for being excellent in general. 💜💙💚💛❤️</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It comes out of left field on a Tuesday night as Nino is lying in bed, swiping mindlessly through his phone as per his usual bedtime ritual. He opens the web browser, wanting to look up something that will put to rest the debate he and Aiba were having earlier about their newest manga obsession, when he sees it. On the new tab page, nestled inconspicuously among the news articles and recommended readings, a familiar name catches his eye.</p><p>He scans the headline before he can stop himself. That alone is enough to thrust him halfway towards a panic attack.</p><p>He knows better.</p><p>He clicks the article anyway.</p><p>It's a short read from some trashy tabloid, really nothing more than hearsay supplemented by grainy paparazzi photos: two people seated elbow-to-elbow on the patio of an exclusive lunch spot, their table crowded with food and stacks of paper. It takes him less than a minute to skim the text, and even less than that to glance at the picture and recognize the sincere smile, the laughing eyes that he has come to know better than he knows his own reflection.</p><p>
  <i>A source close to the bride-to-be tells us that the paperwork is for...</i>
</p><p>Nino swipes the tab closed, then opens the app settings and deletes the page from his browser history. He really does know better.</p><p>At first, he tells himself not to worry. If there were even a shred of truth to it, Jun would tell him. But with nothing else to distract him, all those old insecurities come crawling out from the shadowy corners of his mind like rats sniffing out table scraps. What if it <i>is</i> real? There's no reason it couldn't be; this isn't something they've talked about yet, and although Nino knows Jun wouldn't do it for himself, that doesn't mean he wouldn't do it for his parents, for his family — for the company image. What if it's real, and Jun hasn't told him because it wasn't official until now?</p><p>What if it's real and Jun was <i>never</i> going to tell him?</p><p>Nino slams the brakes on that train of thought as soon as he realizes he's on it. He knows better, and he owes Jun a lot more faith than that.</p><p>And yet... His deepest anxieties rarely respond to logic.</p><p>He looks at his phone again, debating for what feels like minutes, and finally opens up a blank message to Jun. He starts and deletes half a dozen greetings before finally settling on some random emoji — a wiggly purple octopus — and presses send. Their shorthand for <i>just wanted to let you know I'm thinking about you.</i></p><p>He's only half-surprised by the row of sparkles he receives in return a few moments later.</p><p>He taps out, <i>What are you doing up?</i>, and waits patiently for a reply.</p><p>First: <i>Practicing Mario so I can beat you next time.</i> And then: <i>Okay, that was a lie. Prepping for a meeting tomorrow. I can't wait until Friday.</i></p><p>Nino smiles despite the worry and types in a final message.</p><p>
  <i>It'll be here before you know it.</i><br/>
<i>Get some rest.</i><br/>
<i>You need your beauty sleep.</i>
</p><p>He puts his phone away and tries to shut out the pestering voice in the back of his mind. He tries to focus on what Jun just told him — <i>I can't wait until Friday</i> — but the voice won't go away, and all it's doing is repeating the words that came first: <i>that was a lie.</i></p><p>For the first time in months, Nino breathes in to the count of four.</p><p>He should take it as a good sign that he hasn't felt this way in a while. Instead, he keeps thinking that he hates it even more than he remembered.</p><p>He breathes out to the count of eight and tries to sleep.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~</p>
</div>He jolts awake on Saturday night, breathless, his heart pounding against his ribs. Vague details of the nightmare filter through his thoughts and then fade just as quickly. He tries to remember more — he was trying to get somewhere, to find someone, but other people kept getting in his way — but the more he chases after it, the faster it evaporates.<p>He thinks he might have been looking for Jun. When he looks now, Jun is there beside him, covered chin-to-toe in blankets and sleeping soundly.</p><p>Nino exhales and hears the shaky way it comes out. He drags himself upright, tucks his feet into the slippers by his bedside. He makes it all the way to the bedroom door before he hears Jun's voice.</p><p>"Kazu?"</p><p>Nino pauses in the doorway. His chest feels tight, like there's a hand gripping his spine and his lungs and his heart.</p><p>It's Saturday night, they've been reunited for a little over twenty-four hours, and Nino has spent that entire time waiting for Jun to say something about what he saw that night. He keeps reminding himself that it's a ridiculous thing to worry about, that Jun not saying anything means Nino's fear is just as unfounded as he keeps telling himself it is, but that hasn't stopped the thought from circling around his mind all day. And now, apparently, it's made its way into his dreams.</p><p>He doesn't know how to say any of that. He isn't certain that he even should.</p><p>In the dark, he can see the outline of Jun leaning up on his elbows. Jun asks again, "Kazu? You okay?"</p><p>Somehow, Nino finds his voice. "Go back to sleep."</p><p>Jun responds with a mumble of affirmation and slumps back into his nest of blankets.</p><p>Nino slips past the door and shuts it gently behind him, plodding his way down the hall and through the living room, trying to move quietly and quickly at the same time. He feels like he's about to burst at the seams.</p><p>It's damn near freezing out on the balcony, but when he's in this kind of mood, that's how he prefers it. If he feels the cold in his lungs, he knows he's breathing. He hunches down to reach the stash of emergency cigarettes in the flowerpot and feels a little guilty as he does it. They've both been trying to quit, but after the anxiety of these past few days, there's only one cigarette left in the pack. Well, fuck it. He lights it with shaky hands and stands there shivering on the deck. He wants to sit down, but the chairs are still damp from the rain earlier that evening. In hindsight he should have grabbed a sweater before coming out here, but in his rush to get out, he hadn't thought about it.</p><p>So he stands there with his numb fingers and chattering teeth, and he gets halfway through the cigarette when the living room light comes on behind him. He was focused so intensely on trying not to think about anything at all that the sudden light startles a gasp out of him and makes him jump. He drops the cigarette and can hear the cherry hiss as it hits the wet ground.</p><p>"Dammit," he mutters.</p><p>The door slides open behind him, and then he hears Jun's scratchy, groggy voice: "Holy shit." Jun steps out onto the deck and quickly slides the door shut. He was smarter than Nino and put on a sweater, and he's still standing with his shoulders all bunched up and his fingers tucked tightly under his arms, squinting through the dark at Nino. "Aren't you cold out here?"</p><p>"No," Nino grouses, obviously shivering.</p><p>Jun's mouth purses. He sniffs at the air and asks, "Are you smoking?"</p><p>Nino pushes the wet cigarette around with the toe of his slipper. "Not anymore."</p><p>Jun clicks his tongue. "I knew you were keeping some kind of secret from me. You've been jumpy all day."</p><p>Nino wants to snap, <i>Funny thing for you to say,</i> but he bites it back because he knows it's unfair and silly on top of that. He's leaping to conclusions based on the flimsiest, most unsubstantiated evidence possible, and he hates every second of it because it's dragging up all of his least favorite insecurities: his nebulous place in Jun's life, his distress at knowing that there's something he doesn't know, his inability to control his emotions about all of it. And then, of course, there's the fact that even knowing what he knows is a secret in and of itself, so who's the hypocrite now? He lets out a huff of frustration and can see it in the cold air.</p><p>Jun reaches to tug at his sleeve. "Kazu, seriously. It's freezing out here. Let's talk about it inside."</p><p>Nino blinks at him. Even now with his sleep-bleary eyes, Jun knows how to read him — knows there's more than the secret cigarette stash on Nino's mind.</p><p>Well, after more than a year of sharing their weekends like this, it's not that surprising.</p><p>Nino allows himself to be guided into the living room and down the hall, back into bed. He lets Jun arrange the blankets around them and is thankful that there's still some body heat left in them. Jun fusses and fidgets until he's comfortable, both of them on their sides facing each other. Nino's eyes have adjusted to the dark and he can tell that Jun is watching him, waiting for him to fess up.</p><p>Nino doesn't know how. It would be easier to just drop it, to ignore the feelings until they pass.</p><p>But he knows better.</p><p>He says, "I found — well, I <i>saw</i>... something I shouldn't have."</p><p>Jun waits patiently.</p><p>"I wasn't looking for it," Nino adds, because that part feels important. "It showed up on my news feed. I looked up <i>one</i> thing the other day and now my phone thinks I want to read every single article that's published about you, so it was just <i>there</i>, and I couldn't help myself, and —"</p><p>Jun, mercifully, interrupts him. "Ah. I see." Somehow he sounds equal parts exasperated and fond. "The rumor."</p><p>In an instant, all of Nino's worries collapse in on themselves. <i>The rumor.</i> Just from the sound of Jun's voice, Nino knows where this is going.</p><p>"She wants to open a restaurant in one of our hotels," Jun says. "That's why we were meeting for lunch. That's what the paperwork was for. It's kind of funny how she's this megastar celebrity chef, so the connection should be obvious, but because she's a woman everyone assumes it had to be about marriage."</p><p>He must have already said this a dozen times to a dozen different people. Nino feels so stupid.</p><p>And he says it, too — because isn't "honesty in all things" one of their rules?</p><p>"God, J... I feel so stupid." He wants to hide his face under his hands, but he's glad he manages to resist, because then he'd have missed the little smile on Jun's face.</p><p>"It's not stupid, Kazu. If you showed up in someone else's marriage rumor, I'd be worried too."</p><p>Nino rolls his eyes. "No you wouldn't."</p><p>Jun is grinning now. "Well, you know what I mean." His expression goes serious. "I get it though. Our situation is complicated. It's not like you worrying about it is completely unfounded."</p><p>"Yeah, but I shouldn't have —"</p><p>"Kazu. <i>I get it.</i> You don't have to explain."</p><p>Nino insists, "I <i>want</i> to explain." He doesn't want Jun to doubt, to worry that Nino has been checking up on him behind his back, or that Nino doesn't believe in him or the messy, wonderful pieces of their lives they can afford to share. He tries to put all of that into words the best he can. "I just — I saw it on accident, and I didn't really believe it, but then I didn't want to ask you about it because I didn't want you to think I was looking stuff up — which I <i>wasn't</i> — and then I thought that if it was real, you'd bring it up on your own, so I kept waiting, but..." He peters out, feeling defeated. Explaining was supposed to make him feel better, but saying all of this out loud is making him realize precisely how outrageous it is. He says again, helplessly, "I feel <i>so</i> stupid. I know you didn't bring it up because it wasn't real. I guess I just got carried away."</p><p>"I understand," Jun says. "Really, I do."</p><p>Nino doesn't respond, unsure of what else to say, and in the silence that follows, he can feel the tight grip in his chest loosening bit by bit. Somewhere underneath that, though, there's a quiet thread of worry still pulling at him.</p><p>He almost decides not to ask. There are a hundred reasons he could set the question aside for now: it's too personal; it's too big; this isn't the time or place. But his time with Jun has taught him that if this underlying worry is serious enough for something as trivial as a tabloid rumor to piggyback off of it, then the only way for him to clear it is to address it head-on. After all, "honesty in all things" <i>is</i> one of their rules, and if Jun isn't ready to talk about it, well, they have a rule for that too.</p><p>He makes up his mind and says, "So... when you said that me worrying about you getting married isn't <i>completely</i> unfounded..."</p><p>They're close enough that he can feel Jun's chest expand as he takes a deep breath, can feel it contract as he slowly lets it out. Nino waits patiently for his response, whatever it might be.</p><p>"I don't know," Jun finally says. "I've never made a concrete decision about it because it's easier to brush it aside and keep making excuses. My parents want me to, of course, but then again... When the rumor broke, my mom didn't believe it for a second. She even said something about how they're lucky my sister already has a son. Maybe thirty-five is old enough for people to resign themselves to the idea that it's never going to happen."</p><p>Nino sneaks an arm around Jun's waist. He doesn't know what else to do. "I'm sorry you have to deal with all of this." He doesn't know what else to say.</p><p>"It's not your fault," Jun tells him. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry that you have to deal with it too." He mirrors Nino's gesture, slipping an arm around him, hugging him closer. "I can't promise right now that it's never going to happen, but if it does, it won't be out of the blue. I wouldn't put you through that if I could help it."</p><p>There's something on the tip of Nino's tongue, but he bites his lip to hold it back.</p><p>Luckily, Jun seems eager to change the subject. When he says, "By the way," Nino can already hear the teasing in his voice. "What <i>did</i> you look up originally that put my name in your search history?"</p><p>This time Nino does hide his face. His answer is muffled under his hands, but Jun snatches his wrists to pull them away so Nino can see the delighted look in his eyes. "What was that?"</p><p>Nino mumbles, "I was looking at pictures from that event you told me about last week. I wanted to see how much your suit cost."</p><p>Jun is laughing openly, his fingers tight and warm around Nino's wrists. "Did you jerk off afterwards?"</p><p>"Shut up."</p><p>"You did, didn't you?"</p><p>Nino tugs his hands out of Jun's grasp so he can shove at his chest. His face feels way too warm. "Shut <i>up</i>."</p><p>Jun is still chuckling as he wraps an arm around Nino's shoulders to pull him back in. "Oh, come on. You know I love it."</p><p>Nino tucks his face in against Jun's shoulder. This time he's too flustered to hold the words back. "I love you too."</p><p>Part of him hopes Jun doesn't catch it, but of course he does; for a long moment they're both perfectly still, and then Jun pulls back, far enough for Nino to see the grin on his face. "What?"</p><p>Nino blinks at him with wide eyes.</p><p>Jun pokes his chest. "What did you say?"</p><p>"I said shut up —"</p><p>"Say it again."</p><p>"Now I'm never gonna say it!"</p><p>"Too late." Jun inches closer until they're just a breath apart. "You already did." He closes the gap with a kiss that Nino happily returns, feeling all that lingering nervous energy channel into something decidedly more pleasant.</p><p>Jun nudges and guides them so that Nino is on his back, Jun leaning over him, all without breaking the kiss. When Jun does pull away, it's so he can say quietly, "We still haven't tested out those new cuffs I bought you. I spent a lot of money on those, you know."</p><p>Nino could try to hide the effect that has on him — but they both know better. He slides his hands up Jun's shoulders, to his neck, and asks, "How much is a lot?"</p><p>Jun leans down to whisper the number in his ear. Nino feels each zero all the way down to his toes.</p><p>He turns his head to kiss Jun again and resists the urge to hike his legs around Jun's hips only because the next thing he says is, "Well, you'd better go get them. It would be a shame to let all that money go to waste."</p><p>As Jun gets up to find the package they left in the living room, Nino calls after him, "Don't freeze to death out there."</p><p>Jun flashes a smile on his way out the door. "Love you too."</p><p>Nino doesn't rush to say it again so soon after the first time. He knows he'll have plenty of time to say it later.</p>
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